Thousands still without power in Quebec after snowstorm
Some school closures endure notably in Centre-du-Québec
Thousands of Hydro-Québec clients are still without power as the public utility works to repair the electrical grid across the province following this week's snowstorm.
The most affected regions are the Montérégie, Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, Lanaudière and Centre-du-Québec. Difficult road conditions and fallen trees and branches complicated repair work in those regions, according to Hydro-Québec.
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As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, over 70,000 households provincewide were affected by outages.
Heavy snow fell in Montreal overnight, bringing down trees and causing power outages. (Anne-Marie Lecomte/Radio-Canada)
Some school closures endure, notably in the Centre-du-Québec, where the Centre de services scolaires de la Riveraine announced that students across five of its establishments should remain home.
Roughly 1,000 Hydro-Québec workers were dispatched Wednesday morning to deal with the remaining outages, the utility's spokesperson said in a statement.
The vast majority should be resolved today, said Paule Veilleux-Turcotte, with the exception of some more isolated residences in heavily forested areas which might have to wait until Thursday.
At its peak, 395,000 clients were affected.
The heavy wet snow accumulating on trees that held on to their leaves was blamed by the utility for the extent of the damage.
Thumbnail courtesy of Kwabena Oduro/CBC.
This article was originally published for CBC News.